Japan–have I posted about this before? [rummaging] yes, actually–has a habit of executing people on death row with no warning. Even the families customarily don’t find out until afterwards. Yesterday, one of the country’s most infamous serial killers was executed
after a decade on death row. This is from the English version:

[Tsutomu] Miyazaki kidnapped a 4-year-old girl in Iruma, Saitama Prefecture, in August 1988, murdered her in a mountain forest in Akiruno, western Tokyo, and burned her body, according to the ruling.

He also abducted a 7-year-old girl in Hanno, Saitama Prefecture, in October 1988, and murdered her in Akiruno, the court found.

He was convicted of abducting another 4-year-old girl in Kawagoe, Saitama Prefecture, in December of the same year, strangling her and abandoning her body in a forest.

He was also found guilty to abducting a 5-year-old girl in Koto-ku, Tokyo, in June the next year, murdering her and dumping her corpse. Moreover, he molested an elementary school girl in Hachioji, western Tokyo, in July of the same year, according to the ruling.

On Tuesday, Yoshio Yamasaki, 73, and Shinji Mutsuda, 37, were also executed at the Osaka Detention Center and the Tokyo Detention Center, respectively.

Part of Miyazaki’s MO was to send brutally succinct notes to the families of his victims describing how they’d suffered before dying. Whether sane or insane (which is still, I believe, disputed), the man was a fiend.

I hadn’t heard of the other two convicts who were executed; according to The Japan Times:

The two others hanged Tuesday were Yoshio Yamasaki, 73, and Shinji Mutsuda, 37.

Yamasaki was convicted of murdering two people in a life insurance fraud in Kagawa Prefecture in 1985.

Mutsuda was convicted of killing two people to take over a sex service shop owned by one of the victims in Tokyo in 1995.

*******

If that’s not depressing enough, it’s emerged
that the man who rammed a crowd and then stabbed seven people fatally in Akihabara (a section of Tokyo) attacked people who had been helping his previous victims:

Among the 12 victims are at least three people who were caring for those he had earlier attacked, according to investigators. The three include a 53-year-old assistant police inspector and a 54-year-old taxi driver.

The three were attacked from behind and suffered serious stab wounds, local police said.

I haven’t written much about Japan (or anything else) lately here, but the whole story is, of course, a big deal there. Images of Tomohiro Kato’s cell phone website postings, which warned that he planned to kill people in Akihabara, were all over the news. With the proliferation of point systems at and competition among electronics stores, Akihabara has lost some of its allure for shoppers, but the place still crowds up on weekends. Kato perpetrated his attacks in the early afternoon of Sunday, 8 June.